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Years ago, my friend Rachel was telling me a story about her then-boyfriend (and now husband) Adam. I can’t quite remember what it was about, but she paused halfway through and said, ”Do you ever have those moments where you look at someone and realize how much you love them? Well, I had one of those moments.”

I, of course, knew exactly what she meant.

I should warn you right now, that if you are in no mood to read about how lovesick I am, you should probably visit another blog and come back to this one later. Or possibly never. Sorry.

But if you do go, never to return, you will miss out a great deal of awesomeness. Behold:

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I should explain how all of this played out, and how I found myself staring at my husband at the end of Portobello Road, thinking, “Holy crap. I love this man.”

As is often the case with Rand, this outpouring of heartfelt emotion was followed shortly thereafter by, “This is really weird.”

We’d just walked through the antiques market in Portobello Road and, miraculously, the clouds began to part slightly. There were even moments where we could see blue sky overhead.

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And as we strolled, we could hear music playing over a screechy speaker system. The sound quality was awful, and we couldn’t understand why it was being blared through the street, until we neared an intersection and saw them.-

There were two gentleman, emphatically lip-synching “Monday, Monday” by The Mamas & the Papas,

“Wow,” I muttered to Rand. “These might be the two worst street performers on the planet.” Rand nodded, but pointed out that it was kind of impressive. Despite a complete and utter lack of talent, and no real instruments to speak of, they had found a way to busk for money. It was somewhat ingenious.

I asked Rand to give them some money so I could take a photo. Obligingly, he walked over and plunked a coin in their bin (they’d set it on the ground in front of them, along with a book entitled How to Drink).

Enthused by my husband’s generosity, the lead singer (can I even call him that? I mean, he was wearing a napoleon style hat with a stuffed animal skull on it, and was barefoot save for one flipper, so he was obviously in charge, right?) pulled Rand over and handed him a toy guitar. And then this happened:

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And this:

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I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s one of the greatest things, ever.

I watched my husband, half in awe. Not only at his stage presence (which, as you can see, is beyond reproach) but at his ability to not take himself too seriously. I marveled at the manner is which he stood there, absent of any self-doubt, and played a toy guitar with gusto, along with two gentleman who may or may not have been drunk.

And all I could think was: Wow. I really, really love him.

And also: This is weird. 

Rand stayed and performed until the end of the song. He handed the toy guitar back to the lead singer, and found me in the crowd. Wordlessly, he took my hand, and we walked on through the crowds at the edge of Portobello Road Market.

For a long time, neither of us said anything. We just walked, Rand holding me close, and looking off into the distance. Finally, he spoke.

“Holy shit. Those guys are nuts.”

We both laughed and I brushed a bit of hair from his forehead, and thought about how he is my beloved. And it wasn’t weird at all.

Rand, sniffing my coat. Though to be fair, it kinda looks like he’s licking it. Which is gross.

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I had hoped that I would be able to get my post about our visit to the townships of Cape Town up before we left for Australia, but that didn’t pan out. I was rushed for time, and found that I just couldn’t give the tour the attention that it deserved. Rather than draft a post that didn’t do the experience justice, I figured I’d wait until I got home.

Also, between researching the history of Apartheid in South Africa, and Wednesday’s post about the epidemic of rape that’s currently plaguing the country, I needed to switch gears. To talk about something lighthearted, if only for a little bit.

So I want to tell you about how I freaked out and was convinced that I sat in pee last week in a Dublin cab.

Which means, of course, that I was in Ireland last week. And that our travel schedule is now officially reaching crazy-pants territory (no, I’m not complaining. Shut up, I’m totally not).

So last week (at least, last week at the time I wrote this), we were in Dublin for a day, and London for four or five.

Rand had recently finished this book by one of his investors, Brad, and Brad’s wife Amy (you may remember them as the folks who decorate their guest bed whenever we come visit). It talks about what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone who is running their own startup – the difficulties that emerge from it, the conflicts, and ultimately, how to make it work. Rand even wrote a small contribution for it that appears in an earlier chapter.

Brad and Amy note that during every international trip, each person in the relationship is allowed one major and one minor meltdown (or, if major meltdowns are not your thing, two minor meltdowns can replace it). In Dublin, I used up one of my meltdowns. I labeled it as a major, but Rand claimed it was minor, because he’s a mensch like that.

Either way, it was ridiculous.

Dublin and London were scheduled to be cold, so I lugged my parka with me on the trip. It isn’t the prettiest of coats, but it fits over my hips (nothing short of miraculous, if you’ve seen my waist-to-hip ratio, which is evidence that God isn’t subtle. Also, he has a weird sense of humor), and it has a hood, and it’s grey, which I find to be a good neutral and excellent camouflage if you want to blend into a Pacific Northwest sky.

While he is usually swamped, Rand actually had a bit of free time on this trip, so we walked around downtown Dublin together. We popped into a few museums, grabbed lunch, dipped our heads into some shops, and then decided to take a cab back to our hotel on the other side of town.

That’s when things went awry. I realize the infinite number of events that had to happen for us to catch the cab that we did. An extra minute spent at this museum, a bit more time lost to the bathroom. Had we skipped the gift shop, or spent more time in it, or decided to get dessert (let this be a lesson to you: always get dessert) – any of these things would have led to a different cab. But no. We got into the cab that we got into.

I maintain that it was a toilet on wheels.

I did not notice any of the signs: the cabbie’s windows were open even though the day was cold, and there were an unreasonable number of air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

But I’m not in the habit of (prior to climbing in a cab) checking to see if the seat is wet or anything like that. I just assume that’s dry and relatively clean AND NOT SOAKED IN AN UNIDENTIFIED SUBSTANCE. So I climbed in (still wearing my parka) and sat, thinking about how lovely the day had been, even though it was ridiculously chilly. And goodness, did it get even chillier now that I was sitting in the cab? Yes, it certainly seemed to. The cold felt like it was seeping through my clothes and into my bones.

We arrived at our hotel, and Rand generously tipped the cabbie, because we’ve decided that if Americans are going to be known for something in Europe, damn it, it’s going to be that we’re good tippers.

We walked through the hotel lobby to the elevators. That’s when I noticed something was wrong.

The cold that I had felt in the cab hadn’t dissipated. I felt downright damp and chilly. I pulled up the hem of my parka, and felt my jeans. The back pockets were wet.

“Babe,” I said, unable to quite wrap my head around what was going on, “I think my jeans are wet.”

Rand soon realized that this was not a veiled come on. I insisted he feel the seat of my jeans. That, also, was not a veiled come on.

“Huh,” he said. “Yeah, they’re kind of damp.”

I tore off my coat, and began examining the back of it. Sure enough, there were darker streaks where the fabric had been saturated.

Now, a reasonable person might, when faced with a situation like this, look at all the evidence in front of them and draw a conclusion. For example, if it’s pissing rain out, and you later sit in something wet in a cab, you could safely assume that it was rainwater. Or if there was an empty Sprite can on the floor of the car, you’d conclude that it was soda on the seat.

But I’m not a reasonable person. NO. I’m a germaphobe. That means that my thought process was something like this:

Also, if I step in anything, ever, it’s poop. It’s always poop.

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I immediately started to panic.

“I just sat in pee,” I said, starting to shake.

“You did not sit in pee,” Rand said, already knowing that trying to reason with me at this point was futile.

“I did. I just sat in pee and the cabbie didn’t tell us and we fucking tipped him for it.”

“Babe, please -”

“I need to change my clothes. And I need to burn this coat. Shit. I didn’t bring another coat. I’m just going to have to freeze for the rest of the trip.”

“Honey, please, please don’t be crazy about this, okay?”

“That’s really easy for you to say, isn’t it, Rand? YOU DIDN’T SIT IN PEE.”

“NEITHER DID YOU.”

“THEN WHY IS MY COAT WET?”

“It’s Dublin. The entire town is damp. Someone got caught in the rain, or spilled something.”

This answer, obviously, did not suffice. The day was sunny. There was no rain, except for the golden showers that I now imagined had saturated my coat. When we got to our room, I stewed and steamed for a while. Rand acted like he was locked in with a caged tiger. He eyed me warily, and every time I made a movement, he jumped out of the way.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked. I was now both crazed and tearful. Whatever answer he gave, it would be wrong.

“Um, I’m really freaked out about upsetting you more right now,” he replied. This, of course, was the wrong answer.

“You think I’m overreacting,” I snapped.

“Well, yeah -”

“You think I’m behaving like a crazy person.”

“Um …”

“God, you don’t even want to be around me right now, do you? Because I’m crazy and covered in pee. FINE. FINE. I’ll just go sit in the bathroom so you don’t have to be around me anymore.”

I marched over to the bathroom and slammed the door.

“THERE,” I yelled. “NOW YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LOOK AT ME.”

“You know,” Rand said, his voicing finally betraying a bit of impatience, “I wasn’t the one who peed on your coat.”

“I DON’T KNOW THAT FOR SURE,” I yelled back. And even before the last word had left my mouth, I started giggling. And I could hear him laughing just outside the bathroom.

I waited a beat, opened the door, and he was standing there. I rammed my face against his chest.

“Dime sowwy,” I breathed, my voice muffled by his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he said. And then he told me about Brad and Amy’s meltdown rule. Everything that had happened was allowable, and forgivable.

“Anyway,” Rand continued, “We need to go – we have to get to dinner.”

I nodded.

“I’ll get your pee coat,” Rand said.

And once more, I laughed.

As for the coat, it’s now sitting in a bag at the bottom of my closet back home. After I had numerous parties sniff it (all of whom maintained that it did not smell like pee and that it was, in fact, probably water or some other innocuous clear liquid), I decided to quarantine it until I could clean it.

Or burn it. Whatever.

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My husband is a non-believer.

I don’t mean to say he isn’t religious. At least, I don’t mean to just say that he isn’t religious. There are lots of things that Rand doesn’t believe in or ascribe to. Here is a short list:

• Tarot cards
• Palm readers
• Any type of healing that involves crystals
• Putting sugar in your tea/coffee/booze
• Using coupons
• Pre-rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher
• PUTTING DIRTY CLOTHES IN THE GODDAMN HAMPER INSTEAD OF LEAVING THEM IN A PILE OF THE GROUND (Ahem.)
• The afterlife
• Taking vitamins
• Holding your breath while driving through tunnels
• The existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or any other awesome and totally real creature
• Listening to the nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach
• Obeying the GPS

He’s perfectly respectful of people who do believe in those things. I’ve never heard him ever disparage the views of those who think differently than he (as long as those views aren’t intolerant in and of themselves).

But despite being open-minded, he remains a skeptic and a devil’s advocate; the first one to scream that the emperor is naked, to pull the curtain back and reveal that the Wizard of Oz is just a small, skinny man.

Rand doesn’t really believe in anything. Except for the Green Bay Packers.

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Then he’s about as devout as they come.

I don’t quite know how it happened. Rand’s family is from New York and Jersey. He’s lived in Seattle for practically his entire life. He’d never even been to Wisconsin.

But he loves their football team. Quietly, intently, and occasionally accompanied by a little dance. He gives a variant of reasons why (most notably, he loves the fact that the town owns the team. The Packers aren’t backed by some massive investment group; there is no aging billionaire in a suit watching home games from an executive suite. Instead, they are a non-profit; concession stands at the stadium are run by volunteers, with more than half that revenue going to local charities).

Like all great loves, I don’t try to dissect it; I just accept it. And eventually, in some small way, I inherited it. That seems to be a common trait with fans of the Packers. Their devotion is handed down to them from generations before them, and passed along to younger ones.

I don’t mean to suggest that I’m one of the Green Bay faithful. Hell, football in general still boggles my brain. I need Rand to occasionally clarify penalties for me (the subtleties of pass interference escape me), and I secretly wish that the signal for holding was this instead of this. (Also, how cool would it be if a little puff of smoke erupted every time someone threw down a challenge flag? The NFL should totally hire me.) But I’ve grown to really like watching football – especially when I get to watch it with my husband.

Plus, I get to say positively obscene things about the physiques of the players, and he just quietly smiles and shakes his head. Some examples:

• “I think that Eric Decker needs to play either shirtless or pants-less. At this point, I’m pretty flexible. I’ll take either one.”
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• “So … they only call Donald Driver in for special plays? Like … when they need a bit more excessive handsomeness on the field?”
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• “I think that all of the Falcons players should rub Tony Gonzalez’s abs for good luck prior to every game. I’d be happy to demonstrate .”

See? I’m awful. I kind of owe my poor husband for all he puts up with.

And so, when we were in Milwaukee, and realized that Green Bay was a mere two hours away, there was no question as to what we’d be doing with one of our days in Wisconsin.

I was taking Rand on a pilgrimage. We were going to tour Lambeau Field, home of the Packers.

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You know the old and tired expression about a kid in a candy store? I think it should be officially retired. From now on, I’m using “Rand at Lambeau field.”

This is his “stop taking pictures so we can go inside and also, OMG” face.

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I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him happier. Maybe on our wedding day. Maybe.

The drive was flat and straight, the sky hazy until it gave way to sunshine.  Rand took a few business calls, while I drove and eavesdropped on his conversations.

I wave to the camera.

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I’d never been in this part of the country before. It was beautiful.

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Just under two hours later, we’d arrived.

Green Bay is not a big town – about 100,000 people live there. But the scope of the Packers extends far beyond city limits; the stadium seats 70,000, and every game is sold out. The waiting list for tickets is a few hundred thousand people long.

I wondered if the town would be crushed by the presence of the Packers, but it embraces it wholeheartedly. There isn’t even ambivalence. Only love.

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There is a huge parking lot at Lambeau – a small but significant detail that I liked. Even on a non-game day, there were quite a few cars out front. Clearly, the tours are popular.

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To understand the significance of football to the town, you have go back in time a bit.

The Packers are one of the oldest franchises in the NFL – they started in Green Bay in 1919, back when football was populated by a bunch of sepia-toned men running around in leather hats. One of the founders was a gentleman by the name of Earl “Curly” Lambeau (parenthetically, I wish that grown men could still run around with nicknames like that. The world would be a better place if we had people like François “Curly” Hollande and Silvio “Crazy Legs” Berlusconi.) The field where the Packers play was renamed in his honor.

At the time of the Packers’ founding, there were lots of similar small town teams. They all had delightful old-timey monikers like the Muncie Flyers, The Columbus Panhandles (“HOW IS THAT A MASCOT?” – my brain), and my personal favorite, The Kenosha Maroons.

The Maroons apparently had just one awful season before disintegrating. Consequently, I want a Kenosha Maroon jersey.

A few NFL teams can trace their origins back to that era, though their names have changed. In the 1920s, the Chicago Bears were known as the Decatur Staleys (named after the Staley Food Starch Company. This might be the greatest fact in the history of facts). The Detroit Lions were, in the 1930s, called the Portsmouth Spartans.

Only the Packers have remained in the same town, with the same name, for nearly a century. Naturally, the locals have grown quite fond of them.

But NFL teams are notoriously expensive (those little under-eye stickers are not cheap, it would seem), and so the team has had to raise money several times. They do so by selling stock in the team – literally – with the understanding that the stock won’t appreciate in value. Owners have no voting rights, and the stock can’t be resold to another party (though it can, like one’s allegiance to the Packers, be handed down from family member to family member). Oh, and there’s a limit to how many shares you can by, ensuring that no one party can have a controlling stake in the franchise.

If the team is ever sold (a near impossibility, given that it belongs to its many shareholders) the Articles of Incorporation state that the proceeds will go to a number of non-profits and charities across the state of Wisconsin.

In short: the Packers will always belong to its fans.

Our tickets included a stadium tour and a trip to the Packers Hall of Fame (which is self-guided, so we left it for later).

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As we waited for the tour to begin, Rand was so excited, he couldn’t sit still. He kept jiggling his foot nervously.

Even with a quick shutter speed, it’s blurry.

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And yes, we coordinated our footwear for the occasion.

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There were about 20 or so people on our tour. Our guide took us up to one of the luxury boxes, and then down past the locker rooms (which we couldn’t actually enter), and through the same walkway that the Packers take to head out on to the field.

Okay, so now imagine it filled with about 100,000 people all dressed in green and gold and wearing foam cheeseheads while screaming.

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Lambeau field was renovated just a decade ago, but these bricks were taken from earlier incarnations of the stadium, and placed on the walkway.

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It’s so that the players of today can cross the same ground as other Packers before them. I found that rather beautiful.

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Like I said, my husband is not a religious man. He doesn’t believe in much. But seeing him out there on the field, touching the wall where the Lambeau leap happens? It was clear that in his world, this was no small thing.

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We had our moment there, on the field and in the sun.

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This is not to say that there was no levity or joy amidst all the reverence.

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There was boatloads of that.

He is my goober.

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The other visitors eyed us somewhat warily. We visited Lambeau the week after Green Bay’s loss in Seattle, the result of a call so misguided, it was a turning point in bringing the striking NFL refs back to work.

Each time we mentioned where we were from, eyebrows would raise. We did receive less ribbing that the lovely old man from Minnesota who was on our tour (the Vikings and the Packers have a loong rivalry), though. So I guess there’s that.

And you know what? The field goal posts are waaay narrower than they look on TV. I need to stop giving poor Mason Crosby such a hard time. It’s not like he gets a lot of practice.

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After the tour, we made our way down to the Hall of Fame. There, on display, were tons of relics from Packers’ history.

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Telegrams to Vince Lombardi from the 1950s …

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Packers stock certificates throughout the years …

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Old iterations of the uniform …

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And all four of Green Bay’s Super Bowl trophies.

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Also, whatever the hell is going on here:

Me: “That looks obscene. Go stand in the middle of it.” Rand: “But-” Me: “GO STAND IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. And smile.”

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\Before we left, we did something my husband has wanted to do for years (no, I don’t mean making out in front of the stadium. But that happened, too). We got him a Donald Driver jersey from Lambeau field. He wears it once every weekend during the regular season, and twice as often during the post-season.

Gah. My heart.

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It’s funny, what you learn from your loved ones. They pass on to you things that may seem arbitrary or silly to someone else. But in your home and your life, they are important.

Rand taught me about the game. He helped me master the art of screaming at the TV, “HOW IS THAT NOT A HOLD?” He instilled in me a love of the Packers (and an even greater love for my Seahawks), and an appreciation for the simple pleasure of sitting in front of the TV, eating wings, and heckling Tom Brady.

He taught me that football can bring people together.

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He made me a believer.

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The Essentials on The Lambeau Field Tour and The Packers Hall of Fame

• Verdict: Are you a Packers fan? If so, then you don’t need me to tell you to visit. And if you aren’t a Packers fan? Well, you’re missing out.
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• How to Get There: We drove – it’s about 2 hours from Milwaukee, and makes for a nice day trip.
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• Ideal for: Packers and NFL fans, as well as anyone who loves American sports history.
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• Insider tips: Tickets regularly sell out, and are on a first-come, first-serve basis. They run often – about once an hour on weekdays, and once every half hour on weekends. There are no tours on gamedays. We called ahead (before we left Milwaukee) to check availability, and were told that it was a slow day (Tuesday), so there wouldn’t be any problems. Still, we gave ourselves enough time that if we missed one tour, we had a chance of getting into the following one.
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• Nearby Food: We ended up eating at Curly’s Pub, inside the stadium. It’s what you’d expect from bar food, but still pretty damn good. The fried cheese curds threatened to clog our arteries. And yet, we continued to eat them.
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  Oh, and across the street from the field is Kroll’s West. According to Gary over at Everything-Everywhere (who’s a native Wisconsinite), Kroll’s is a bit of an institution in Green Bay, having been in operation for more than 70 years. The food isn’t necessarily stellar (think greasy spoon/diner-type food), but it’s supposedly a fun place.
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• Good for kids: Not really. There’s a lot of sitting and standing, and it’s not what I’d call stroller-friendly. However, if you have an older kid or a teenager who’s a big Packers fan, they will love it.

There was a lot of awesomeness happening that night.

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I’ve been curating a theatrical trailer for the crazed, unscripted movie that is my life.

It plays whenever I’m prompted to take stock of my existence: on the night before I got married; in the days prior to my surgery; during the one ill-fated evening in a New York hotel that our toilet started to overflow, and I, somewhat irrationally, thought we might die.

(Parenthetically, that latter event has henceforth been known in our house as Apoohcalypse.)

I star in my own trailer, obviously. But I’m also the director, and the producer, and key and dolly and best boy grips (shut up – I do too know what those are). And I’m the editor. As the years pass, I’m constantly leaving scenes on the cutting room floor, and adding new ones.

Many things that seemed significant at the time – in high school, or college, or the grocery store parking lot last week when someone stole my spot – no longer make the cut. But they once did.

The scenes that remain, even after many years, are the more notable moments of my life. The summer when I was 7 that I broke my arm (indeed, to this day, I still can’t touch my right shoulder with my right hand. Which isn’t really an issue unless I have to lead some sort of critical round of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” where the fate of the free world is at stake. Then we’re all screwed). That time I got sent to the principal when I was in the third grade, in a complete miscarriage of justice. My first kiss. My first heartbreak. My subsequent first eating of two pounds of chocolate as a means of dealing with said heartbreak.

For the last 11 years, this has been my leading man.

This unspeakably awesome photo is courtesy of our friend Rudy Lopez.

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11 years. A landmark which we just passed.

I’ve never stuck with anything for 11 years. Not the same haircut. Not the same hobbies. Not the same celebrity crushes (with perhaps the exception of Jeff Goldblum. But he’s dark-haired and long-legged and Jewish. If that’s not a pattern, people, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS.)

But then Rand snuck into the picture, and turned the narrative of my life into something far better than what it was.

And events that would have faded into the ether of the past had he not happened, had we not happened, have made it into the trailer. The bus ride on which I bumped into him on a rainy November night. The awkward conversation that followed. Our first date, two weeks later, during which I told myself that I would not kiss him (a resolution that I am pleased to say I kept to for the better part of three hours. I’m know. I’m pretty impressed at my willpower, too.)

We’ve had so much good screen time. So much ridiculousness. So many giggles. So much making out. And so many photographs of said making out.

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Hell, he’s changed the whole tone of the film of my life. I’ve found that I’ve had to edit out more and more of the darker vignettes in my memory. All the past heartaches. All the break-ups and the disappointments and tears.

I’ve had to cut a lot of them in post-production to make room for the loveliness of my husband.

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And our star-studded supporting cast.

We take Halloween rather seriously in our house. My mother is to blame. I don’t quite know when she learned about the tradition of dressing up for the holiday (I seriously doubt it had been exported to Europe back in the late 70s, when my brother was wee, so it must have been after she moved to the states and I was born), but I can imagine her hearing the word “costume” and getting that charmingly crazy look on her face that I know too well.

And so, on one October that I was too small to remember, a brilliant madness began, and continued throughout my childhood. My mother would make elaborate costumes, and do my hair, and wonderful things like this would happen:

My brother and I, circa 1984.

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As I got older, my enthusiasm for Halloween started to wane. I briefly became one of those gals who wore tight dresses and animal ears and declared myself a cat or a bat or something else equally unimaginative. I feel shame admitting it now, though I suspect that it’s a phase we all go through: we have to tell ourselves that we are above dressing up and pretending. That we’ve somehow outgrown eating candy we pilfered from strangers.

For a while, I lost the spirit of Halloween. Which for me, a gal with a long legacy of elaborate costumes and candy-eating, was somehow far sadder than if I had lost the Christmas spirit. (I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because candy canes never have, and never will, trump a Reese’s peanut butter cup).

Then I met Rand. And things started to change.

This was a boy who was willing to sweetly request I make him a Fred Flintstone costume, and then bravely walk to work while wearing it.

I’d spent years pretending that I was too cool for Halloween, when, really, I should have been asking: Am I cool enough for Halloween?

Was I brave enough to, as a full-grown adult, wear a ridiculous costume out in public? Did I have the strength of character to be able to wander down the street, knowing that people would stare and point and occasionally ask to take our photo? Could I handle being ugly, or scary, or strange?

Turns out that I most certainly could. In Rand’s company, I could do all of those things. And a tradition started of the two of us dressing up on October 31st.

There was one catch, though. Rand loves Halloween, and he loves costumes, but he was and is staunchly opposed to wearing makeup, masks, and wigs (I, thankfully, am not). So whatever costume I make for him must be simply that – a costume. These parameters have made things slightly more challenging, but no less fun.

Two years ago I made us Star Trek uniforms (from the original series). Rand was supposed to be Scotty, but he ended up as a red-shirted ensign (because I ran out of gold ric-rac). Fear not: he made it through the night.

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Last year, he finally went as Steve Zissou from Life Aquatic, a costume he’d been contemplating for years. Indeed, that was why he grew out a beard in the first place, on an October day many years ago. He was considering a costume; the beard stuck.

I was Margot Tenenbaum, from The Royal Tenenbaums.

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And while we hadn’t planned on paying homage to Wes Anderson on two consecutive Halloweens, after we went to Moonrise Kingdom, and saw that the main character, Sam, looked remarkably like Rand did as a little boy, we couldn’t resist. Heck, Sam even had a little brown-haired girlfriend.

Since I am unemployed and endowed with plenty of free time, I started working on Rand’s costume. My goal this year was not to dye any clothing (since I’ve stained my hands blue for two consecutive Halloweens doing just that).

I’m happy to say I succeeded. I found a shirt and shorts at the thrift store that were miraculously the same shade of olive green, and set about adding trim and merit badges to them for Rand’s costume.

I remained faithful to the film for some of the badges …

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And took some artistic liberty with others. (This is Roger Mozbot, the mascot for Rand’s company.)

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I bought him a raccoon tail hat, and some knee-high socks, and a canteen …

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Oh yeah, and also? RAND SHAVED OFF HIS BEARD FOR THE COSTUME.

Here we are in character (i.e., overcome with ennui) as Sam and Suzy.

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For only the second time in seven years, Rand is sans-beard. So now it’s basically like I’m making out with a stranger.

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Which is just a weensy bit spooky. But I’m sure I’ll get over it.

Carving out some quality time in Dublin.

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After the fussing and fueding that accompanied our Ireland trip, Rand and I decided to institute something we call “date night”. I know some of you are reading that and wondering why the hell a childless, petless, gardenless (I threw gardens in there because they sound like a lot of work) married couple would need a date night.

Or, in the words of my dear friend Sarah …

“Screw you. You don’t have kids. Every night is date night.”

(It was said with love, I swear.)

But after Rand worked entirely through our Ireland trip (which was supposed to have been a vacation for my perpetually stressed-out husband), I gently voiced my displeasure to him about the toll his professional life was taking on his health.

It might have sounded a lot like screaming and crying and sobs of “You don’t even have time to go to the d-d-doctor,” but that was me gently voicing my displeasure.

So, more as a means to give his poor, overworked brain and body a break than anything else, Rand has set aside one weeknight where he doesn’t do any work after 7 pm.

What kind of madman regularly works after 7pm, anyway? I give you exhibit A:

The same sort of madman who thinks you can learn to drive stick-shift while watching YouTube videos. For the record: you cannot.

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On a regular evening, Rand usually comes home,  has dinner with me, and we’ll hang out for a bit (or not, depending on how busy he is), after which he’ll go upstairs and proceed to toil on his computer until the wee hours of the morning. Then he wakes up, goes to work, and does it all again. Every day. Weekends, too. He doesn’t get much sleep, if he gets a cold it will last for weeks, and his back is constantly bugging him.

So now that we have date night, we’ll have dinner, sit around lazily in front of the TV, and go to bed at a shockingly reasonable hour. I suspect it’s the opposite of most other people’s date nights, where they stay out late, have a few cocktails, and feed each other dainty bites of fancy desserts.

Instead, we get to act like The Golden Girls: we’ll put on pjs, complain about how cold it is, or that the TV is too noisy. Then we’ll eat an entire pan of brownies (cheesecake is overrated) while insisting that 9:30pm is an acceptable bedtime.

It’s really great. Or, theoretically it is. Because since we’ve started it, “date night” has become “violently ill” night.

On our first date night, we were so excited about the free time we had together (for, as you might recall, we are still huge dorks for each other) that we decided to go out to a semi-fancy dinner at a local restaurant we both love … and proceeded to get food poisoning. The evening was spent on the couch, curled up over our stomachs and sweating, while periodically disappearing to the bathroom for long stretches.

We’d occasionally hypothesize, through our cramping, what it might have been.

“Was it the appetizer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the pasta?”

“How could it have been the pasta?”

“I don’t know. Possibly the desser-”

“DON’T YOU DARE BLAME THE DESSERT.”

Romantic, no? We swore the next week would be better.

It was not. I was hit with a vicious cold (that I initially thought was the flu), and spent it on the couch, huddled under blankets, shivering, while trying to eat ramen. Rand did not fare much better: his back was killing him, and so he spent much of the night lying on the floor, twitching. In hindsight, we looked like two addicts being weaned.

Oh, date night! Will your gifts never cease?

No, apparently not.

Last night was the date night to end them all. (No, seriously. I’m strongly considering suspending date night after yesterday, because if trends continue, one of us is going to end up in the ER).

I had been nursing a headache that had started the night before, and as the 7 o’clock hour was nearing, I decided I needed to knock that sucker out of the park. No way I was going to spend a third consecutive date night sick. So I dug through the medicine cabinet and found my uber-strong post-surgery headache meds. My doc had mentioned that I could take them in the event of a stubborn headache. Sure, they made me a bit loopy, but that was fine. I could handle being loopy. I could not handle a two-day long migraine.

So I took one – One! Half the recommended dosage – and figured I’d be fine. And for twenty minutes or so, I was. Then, halfway through dinner, I politely informed my husband that I might be falling ill.

“Good sir, I do believe I might barf,” I said, delicately wiping my mouth.

And we retired to the couch, where I lay down in hopes the room would stop spinning. It did not. Apparently I still had so much stuff in my system after my surgery, I was able to somehow stave off the nausea the pills normally induce. But not so this time. This time was date night.

So I spent the evening emptying out the contents of my stomach until there was nothing left, after which I was merely dry heaving into the toilet bowl, my head gently nestled against the seat.

“Baby, you okay?” Rand asked from the doorway of the bathroom.

“Kill me,” I whispered. “Kill me now.”

He laughed. Then he did the dishes, and helped me up to bed.

And as I closed my eyes to the wave of nausea that was once again about to hit me, only one thought entered my head …

Date night is trying to kill me.

Photographically speaking, I mean. He knows I have a dark and sinister and downright evil side to my personality - that could never be disputed. It shows itself in full force when I’m stuck in traffic, when too much time has elapsed between my consumption of snacks, and during both the regular and playoff seasons of the NFL.

During those moments, my husband will stare at me with the same wariness you would a wild badger that you’ve suddenly discovered in the backseat of your vehicle as you zip down the highway. It’s a mixture of where-the-hell-did-that-come-from and I-need-to-get-out-of-this-situation-as-quickly-as-possible.

But while my evil streak is well known to him (and I would like think that he will eventually grow to love and tolerate it like he has the rest of me), Rand has disavowed any knowledge of my physical bad side. You know what I speak of, yes? It’s the one that you never show to the camera. The one you hope doesn’t appear in too many of your wedding photos. The one that causes you to do all manner of contortions and yoga-inspired moves (jutting your chin out, tilting a shoulders, trying to not smile too hard on that one side) in hopes of avoiding it.

For some people it’s a double-chin (for me, it certainly is). For others it’s a unfortunate angle of the nose (come to think of it, I suffer from that, too). Or a normally alert and symmetric eye will suddenly decide that it needs to see the world, regardless of what its partner is doing (Sigh. Strike three. Someone hand me a cupcake).

My husband doesn’t think I have a photographic bad side,  the wonderful fool. Or, at least, he pretends not to see it, which is equally lovely, really.

But during our trip to Ireland, I managed to get two rather distinct examples of both my good and bad sides.

I give you Exhibit 1 or “Geraldine as she would like to be seen.”

Not COMPLETELY unfortunate looking, right?

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I would now like to introduce you to my slovenly twin. I call her “Smeraldine.”

Oh, dear.

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For some reason, whenever I look at myself from that angle, I imagine myself saying, in a voice that it little more than a grunt, the following:

“GIMME CHEESE.”

I don’t really know why. I mean, I like cheese, but I usually don’t demand it in grunts like I do cake.

If you are trying to determine which side is your bad side (so that you may hide it from other humans), I recommend these two steps:

1. Grab several photos of yourself from different angles.
2. Determine which one makes you recoil in fear.

My supposed bad side. Funny how in this picture, you hardly notice it at all.

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Especially when you find someone who can’t see your bad side at all.

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Not all trips go smoothly.

I’d like to say that they did. I really do. I’d like to tell you that every single journey is a cakewalk, that my hair looks consistently wonderful and blows in the wind as my husband and I frolick through fields hand-in-hand.

But, oh, that would be a big steaming pile of hooey, and I can feel my nose growing longer when I just think of telling you that. And frankly, I can’t afford to have this nose of mine get any longer that it already is, or I’ll have to start buying it its own seat on our next flight.

That just makes bad financial sense. So I’m going to tell you the bitter truth: Ireland was rough.

I meant it was figuratively rough. But I guess it was literally rough, too.

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It wasn’t Ireland’s fault, mind you. Ireland was beautiful and sunlit (I’m not kidding), and so, so friendly. Nor was it the occasion that brought us to that part of the world at fault – we headed to Belfast to see a friend get married, and our table at the reception was – as the groom put it – a little party in and of itself. We were surrounded by people we know and love, some of whom were even at our own wedding. We had a fantastic time.

And our accommodations were grand. The food was excellent (there was sticky toffee pudding and honeycomb ice cream and bags and bags of chewy sour candy, fresh oysters and rich stews and fish and chips and dense, earthy breads). There were glasses and glasses of Guinness and talkative folks with fantastic accents; beautiful, blue-eyed women and men with bright smiles who referred to everyone as “love”.

It was great.

So, no, the problem we had in Ireland didn’t actually have anything to do with Ireland. It had to do with us. And I can say this definitively, because the problem followed us all the way back home, creeping into our suitcase with us and releasing itself in our home, a vicious and unwelcome stowaway that I wish had fallen off somewhere over the Atlantic.

Finally, finally, we exorcised that demon, sent the specter packing into the ether, but its presence was still felt, the wounds it left not yet healed, so that for days afterwards we still chose our words carefully, we tread lightly, so that our voices didn’t lure it back into our happy home.

(I am incredibly proud of that last paragraph.)

The point was, it wasn’t the best trip in the world, and that was our fault. I look at our faces in some of the photos, and I can see it. I can see that we were angry with one another. I can see that we were stressed, and frustrated and really, really pissed off.

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But we still went out. We still saw things. We still took a ton of photos and held hands. We kissed. And even when we didn’t kiss, we shared glasses of whiskey and pressed our lips to the same spot on the glass. A small but significant gesture that said, “I am still willing to get drunk and go home with you. And only you, for the rest of my damn life.”

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And we still had some stupid fun, too.

OMG. SCOTLAND.

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It was not the best trip in the world, but by no means a bad one. That I should hold such a positive impression after all the personal turmoil is a testament to the country and its people.

Looking at the pictures don’t make me sad. Thinking back on the days that we fought aren’t that painful, because it was such a temporary thing. It would be like looking at a photo of rain cloud and worrying that you are going to get wet.

And I’m just going to let this photo speak for itself.

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It was just a long, shitty fight on an otherwise nice trip. And the photos where we aren’t quite smiling at one another crack me up more than anything else. Because, good heavens. There are times when I look like I might slit someone’s throat.

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But as I look at the sky in those photos, changing from  sun to rain and back to sun again, I am reminded that things do turn out okay in the end.

You find yourself back where you should be.

Oh, and honestly? My hair is constantly a mess.

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And ready for your next trip together.

Okay, fine: I’m a huge, unmitigated dork in most circumstances, and that includes when someone points a camera at me.

See?

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Often times, everyone else looks normal, and I look positively insane.

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This was true even when I was a kid:

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I can’t help it. I just get so darn excited when photos are being taken. Especially those absurdly cheesy photos they try to sell you at museums or tourist attractions. I positively love those.

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In most of my photos with Rand, it looks like the poor guy is begrudgingly putting up with me.

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Or that I’m accosting him in some way or another:

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But lately, I’ve noticed a slight shift. When the camera is on him, I’ve found a bit of dorkiness peeking through.

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To paraphrase Futurama, I’ve found that for once, he’s the one embarrassing me:

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And honestly, I couldn’t be more proud.

Also pictured: Patrick, being a total goober.

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I think the true test of any marriage is how well you can handle being stuck in traffic together.

If you can spend the afternoon staring at the same vehicle in front of you while you crawl across the interstate at 4 mph and you don’t end up strangling your spouse with a sock by the end of it, you can probably get through anything. If you encounter gridlock so heinous, people in neighboring cars actually get out to WALK THEIR DOGS, and you contemplate abandoning your rental car and your beloved to run into the woods and live amongst the hill folk, but you don’t do it because you would miss your husband and processed foods too darn much, then pat yourself on the back. You have a solid relationship.

That’s just how I see it.

Of course, I’m biased. Rand and I have sat through a lot of traffic jams. Like we did the weekend before last – we were in Colorado visiting friends, and got delayed by an hour both to and from the airport.

Rand entertained himself by falling asleep for part of the ride.

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I sort of wish I had thought of that, but it’s probably best that I didn’t, since I was the one driving.

I’m only pretending to steer in this photo. The car wasn’t actually moving.

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Instead, I kept myself busy by reading every single sign that we passed. I even photographed them.

Don’t worry about me using a camera while driving. The car wasn’t moving. Not. One. Damn. Inch.

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And had time to do dramatic interpretations of each one for a drowsy Rand:

“Wake up and take a picture of me pretending to be a sheep!” / “Wait, what?” / “Stop asking questions and just DO it.”

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Guess how I acted out this sign:

Answer: I farted.

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It’s funny: despite being stuck motionless on the road for positively ages, we actually sort of had fun. Rand noted that it wasn’t all that different from sitting together on the couch, watching an awful TV show.

He was right. Hell, there weren’t even any awful commercials to fast forward through.

I attribute the success of our drive to six things:

1. Snacks
2. A really awesome soundtrack (thanks to several CDs we brought with us, each one masterfully curated by my husband)
3. Refusing to jump ship car
4. Appreciating the time you get to spend together
5. Staying calm
6. Occasionally making out

And if you think about it, those are the same things that make our marriage work, too.

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That’s why I say if you can sit through traffic together, you’ll be just fine.